laptop cooling trays

[arc]

are these any good? currently have a cushion and a tray and then laptop. but it still gets toasty playing the sims.

one with a fan? one without a fan? anyone use them?

these look tack-tastic;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-3-Fans-LE...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item2559bf62da

this looks better;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-FANS-USB-LA...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item35a8564edd

what about no fan?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Laptop-Coolin...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item48381f5bf9

 

[Focus Owner]

may be worth vaccing though vents

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

I brought some of these a few months ago, seem to work ok.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Large-usb-fan...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item4a9eebd387

Were about £10 when I brought them though.

 

[arc]

may be worth vaccing though vents

vents are fine, laptops just don't like being on laps!

I brought some of these a few months ago, seem to work ok.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Large-usb-fan...Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item4a9eebd387

Were about £10 when I brought them though.

any photos? and are the LEDs easy to kill?

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

Dunno about LED's, I just put up with them.

Not sure it would work on lap though, design of this on means it needs to be on a desk.

 

[dave]

betterware do a non fan one

 

[ChrisUK]

I recommend the belkin one. Fine on my HP multimedia laptop with dedicated Nvidia Geforce gfx which managed to burn out a motherboard in 18months, since replacing I don't want the same fate lol.

 

[dave]

when laptops get too hot do you get blue screen?

 

[ChrisUK]

You can get one yes.

 

[dave]

ah cool. that laptop i was working on the other day was running fine at my house an fine, back where it was until sunday now they get blue screen of death. was ok though untill they started using msn
so one of these fan trays might help then?

 

[Hellcat]

Give it a blast out with a can of compressed air first. They're cheaper.

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

I thought normally if computer over heats it flashed 'over heat' on one of those dos black screens then shuts down

 

[ChrisUK]

Thats if its set to shut down before the threshold of hardware failure (usually ram / processor errors) and it normally just cuts off.

 

[dave]

it wasnt heat, the new (used: hardrive i put in it is buggered, i tap it and it makes funnt noise gotta fing another hardrive from some where now i dont have another spare

 

[ChrisUK]

Heat is the biggest killer of HDD's especially in Laptops (except for getting dropped) .

If SMART is switched on it will log extremes of temperature and can be read with a variety of programs.

 

[Andy The Gardener]

My laptop was suffering from overheating a month or so back, and it kept shutting itself down before setting itself on fire. I bought a little thing from the pound shop, had 4 'legs' which you sit under the laptop which raises it up about an inch to alloy air to flow under it.

It wasn't bad for a quid, but I took the other route of opening up the bottom where the fan is and found dust and fluff was blocking the vents and also stopping the van from running. Cleaned it out and it hasnt even got mildly hot since

 

[dave]

Heat is the biggest killer of HDD's especially in Laptops (except for getting dropped) .

If SMART is switched on it will log extremes of temperature and can be read with a variety of programs.

i didnt see smart in the settings its a dell inspiron 6000

 

[garlicbread22]

....., but I took the other route of opening up the bottom where the fan is and found dust and fluff was blocking the vents and also stopping the van from running. Cleaned it out and it hasnt even got mildly hot since

Exactly what i did. Laptop kept shutting itself down so cleaned out the fan which solved the problem. Just do this every month or so now, easy to do on my Dell 1525.

maybe you should try this before getting a cooler as mine also used to shut down when running full screen things (games and videos) aswell

 

[BlueDan]

A quid?

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/644655/laptop-cooler-only-1-00-poundland

ChrisUK wasn't this a design fault with the Nvidia GPUs? iirc a lot of Dell XPS laptops died because of this too.

I'm currently using a 'slab' of pine about 3/4 of an inch thick when I use my laptop in bed so the vents underneath aren't blocked, I may upgrade to a bit of conti at some point

HWMonitor will give you a quick simple readout of various temperatures, although if you're that concerned it may be worth running something like motherboard monitor or SpeedFan which will keep an eye on things and alert you when a threshold temperature is reached (SpeedFan will also read the previously mentioned SMART info from the hard disk(s)).

[edit] dave, there might not be any settings to turn SMART on and off, I've only seen such an option in the BIOS of older computers, I think it's just so you can switch it off for compatibility with some older OS-es. HD may only be making the noise because you're tapping it and the head is finding it's place again

 

[Gezi]

My bf uses a laptop cooler with a fan. Its uncomfortable to have on your lap but seems to do the trick and he swears by it.